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MONROVIA – Liberian President George Weah, faces a tight runoff election Tuesday as he seeks to defeat a repeat challenger and earn a second term within the West African country.
The former global football celebrity could have simply defeated Joseph Boakai within the 2017 runoff, however effects from the primary spherical of vote casting remaining month display the 2 neck and neck: Weah took 43.83% whilst Boakai introduced in 43.44% of the whole.
“We are going to an election where nobody has a competitive edge with a wide margin,” mentioned Ibrahim Nyei, government director on the Ducor Institute for Social and Economic Research.
In the weeks for the reason that Oct. 10 first spherical, each applicants had been actively in search of the endorsements of the opposite small opposition events. So a ways, Boakai has controlled to win the backing of the 3rd, fourth and fifth-placed finishers. While that quantities to just 5.6% of the vote, it will tilt the runoff in Boakai’s want. Weah, in the meantime, has gained the fortify of 2 different opposition events.
Liberians may have a long wait for effects: It took electoral officers two weeks to announce the result of the primary spherical and the will for a runoff.
In a ultimate speech to electorate, Weah stressed out that “this runoff election is not just about re-electing me as president for a second term.”
“It is about Liberia’s future. It is about your children, your families, your communities, and the generations to come,” Weah mentioned. “Together, we will continue to forge a path toward progress, peace, and prosperity.”
Weah won the 2017 election amid high hopes brought about by his promise to fight poverty and generate infrastructure development. It was the first democratic transfer of power in the West African nation since the end of the country’s back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003 that killed some 250,000 people.
But the 57-year-old president has been accused of now not dwelling as much as key marketing campaign promises that he would fight corruption and make sure justice for sufferers of the rustic’s civil wars.
Boakai, 78, has campaigned on a promise to rescue Liberia from what he called Weah’s failed leadership. He previously served as Liberia’s vice president under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female leader.
“These runoff elections represent the final push to remove terror, lawlessness, corruption, indifference, neglect and incompetence that have plagued our country for six years,” he told Liberians in his final speech before Tuesday’s vote. “We are confident that Liberians will turn out again in their mass to demonstrate their love, courage, resilience, and determination to join us in rescuing our country.”
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Associated Press author Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, contributed.
